Help learners find the most important information in a text with a lesson on summarizing. As kids read through a passage about Johannes Gutenberg, they summarize small excerpts, put events in sequential order, and respond to two longer...

Provide scholars with an opportunity to practice summarizing text with a two-page learning exercise. Learners read poems, share stories with their peers, and summarize their new-found-knowledge. 

Scholars delve into an informational text with the help of four pages that focus on the author's purpose, vocabulary words, summarization, and main idea.

Examine persuasive writing using this informational excerpt about natural habitat conservation. Readers examine the headings of three paragraphs to determine their effect, then copy the first sentences of each. They use these topic...

How skilled are your class members at summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting from a text? Find out with this assessment that asks readers to identify the thesis statement, the summary, the paraphrases, and the quoted material in an...

How did Theodore Roosevelt stress the importance of conservation during his time as president of the United States? Take a closer look at the language Roosevelt used himself in a 1907 address to Congress, and have your young...

Scholars explore an expository text to answer questions about its structure.

A three-part assessment promotes reading comprehension skills. Class members read literary texts and take notes to discuss their findings, answer comprehension questions, write summaries, and complete charts. 

Students read a text and summarize what they have read to others. In this summarization worksheet, students also cross out unimportant details.

Analyze any nonfiction text with the set of questions on this sheet. Class members practice inferring by noting the main idea and purpose of a passage. They also analyze an opinion in the passage and write a brief summary. See the...

Readers are asked to identify seven important events in a narrative and then to explain why these events are key to the story. To conclude the activity, kids craft a summary using their list.

Use a performance task to assess third graders' ability to read informational text. After they plan a lemonade stand business, young entrepreneurs implement that plan through informational writing. The task assumes learners can...

Start off analysis of a text with a instructional activity that asks pupils to complete several tasks. Class members note down a couple of characters or people and their distinguishing traits, describe the most important event, summarize...

Scholars learn about the Hero's Journey as they read Ray Bradbury's "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh." They analyze the story's structure and narrative techniques. Finally, they write summaries of the text's central idea and use their...

If you're looking to set your class up for writing effective arguments, try out this idea. While originally created with freedom as a guiding idea, the activity could easily be adapted for other themes. As a class, create a chart of...

Who was Vincent van Gogh? Most of the questions can be answered in two or three sentences; however, there is at least one essay prompt and one personal response question that require longer answers. Questions call for a good mix of...

A three-part assessment challenges scholars to write opinion essays covering the topic of the student council. After reading three passages, writers complete a chart, work with peers to complete a mini-research project, answer...

The first verse of A.A. Milne’s poem, Beetle, is the basis for a model of how to summarize a text. The two-page worksheet also includes a short story for guided practice, as well as summarizing questions, a story sharing activity, and an...

Are we alone in the universe? This brief informational text on extraterrestrial theory has been split into seven sections to help scholars practice note taking. They read the statements, underlining key words. Then, using the graphic...

Can your class sum up a text in a few sentences? Help them build this skill by starting nice and slow. For this summarizing activity, the teacher marks the main ideas with sticky notes. Learners read and reread the text, pausing at the...

Elevate children's reading comprehension skills with this collection of guided reading resources. From paper dice with basic comprehension questions printed on them to a system for using sticky notes to identify key...

An activity promotes reading comprehension. Readers analyze a text of their choice while activating prior knowledge and asking and answering questions. Scholars enforce multiple strategies to improve comprehension.

The Cay has been criticized by groups such as the Council on Interracial Books for Children because of the way race is portrayed. Explore the argument against the book while taking the author's perspective into account. Class members...

Having this reading passage handy to assess your learners' ability to process written text, practice summary with your class, and improve reading comprehension. This passage is about the people who work at the hospital. Learners read...